JEFFERSON CITY • If elections were held over coffee and steakburgers, the political world would be a friendlier place.
That was my thought last week as the war of words got ratcheted up in the Missouri battle for the U.S. Senate between Democrat Robin Carnahan and Republican Roy Blunt. Watch the television ads and read the news releases coming from the campaigns and their surrogates and you get the idea that Blunt and Carnahan truly abhor the other one as the "very worst" of everything politics has to offer.
For a reality check, I thought back to my first visits with both candidates for an extended one-on-one conversation.
Both visits were a few years ago, long before a Senate campaign was a twinkle in either candidate's eye. Carnahan and I met over coffee. Blunt and I had lunch at Steak 'n Shake.
And you know what I remember?
If voters actually got to meet Blunt over a burger or Carnahan over a latte, they'd like them. They're both smart — much smarter than the concocted phrases they repeat during made-for-television campaigns. They're both personable. And they both know how to work with politicians of the opposing party.
This is the message that gets lost during the rough-and-tumble campaign season.
When Carnahan and I first met for coffee, it wasn't long after she had returned from being a member of the inaugural class of Rodel fellows at the Aspen Institute. The Aspen Institute is a Colorado-based think tank that brings together young leaders from both sides of the political aisle to foster cooperation among the parties so that they can work together to solve the nation's problems.
Perhaps it's difficult to imagine in today's environment, but every year, an equal number of Democrats and Republicans head to the Aspen Institute to work together, learn about each other and develop future partnerships.
Carnahan spoke passionately about working with Democrats and Republicans to improve the level of communication and civility as politicians tackle complex issues. Missouri's secretary of state had some interesting classmates: Michael Steele, who is now chairman of the Republican National Committee; Republican Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin; Illinois Republican Congressman Mark Kirk, who is running for President Barack Obama's old Senate seat; and Democrat Kendrick Meek of Florida, who is seeking the Senate seat there.
Blunt, too, talked of bipartisanship when we first met. He told me that one of the things that made him successful as a "whip" of congressional votes was his ability to work with Democrats.
That skill would be put to the test during the intense national debate over the Wall Street bailout that was pitched by Democrats and Republicans alike as absolutely necessary to save our national economic system from collapse. That vote, under a Republican president and Democratic Congress, was one of the last bits of serious bipartisanship to come out of Washington.
Blunt recalled for me more recently how he came to develop a skill for compromise. It was as a university president, dealing with faculty groups, trustees and administrators who didn't always see eye-to-eye.
"The job is not to talk about what is the ideal thing that can be done, but what can be done today," he said.
It's the sort of statement I could have imagined also coming out of Carnahan's mouth. But not now. Not during campaign season. Carnahan blasts Blunt for a bipartisan vote that her party supported, and Blunt blasts Carnahan for being a "rubber stamp" for the very people he was willing to compromise with back in 2008.
The reality? Columbia Daily Tribune editor and publisher Hank Waters, a former employer of mine, put it this way earlier this year in an editorial:
"(Blunt and Carnahan) as officeholders … would not be that radically different. I know both these candidates to be good and honest servants of the public as they see it, and they don't see it that differently."
I suspect the campaign consultants who manage such national races didn't much like that sentiment. And Waters might have overstated their similarities a bit.
No doubt, Blunt would be a firm Republican vote, but work with the Democrats on some issues, as Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond has. And Carnahan would be a firm Democrat vote who sometimes crossed the aisle to work with the GOP, much like Sen. Claire McCaskill.
But Waters, like me, has sat down with Blunt and Carnahan one-on-one, in different times, away from the campaign madness. They've broken bread together, and the view from there — over coffee, or a burger, or a beer — can be quite a bit different than the one we'll see from now until Nov. 2.
